The offbeat personal finance blog for responsible people.

Black Coffee: The Death and Taxes Edition

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance. Here’s what caught my attention over the past week…

This week, I’m continuing to feature bloggers I enjoyed meeting at Fincon12 earlier this month. Okay … I’ll admit it: I met most of them there.

Did I just hear somebody just scoff? Hey, give me a break. I couldn’t have possibly met everyone, folks — there were at least two million personal finance bloggers there. Can you imagine if they had all showed up?

Enough lame excuses. Let’s get this party started, shall we?

Blogs I’ve Been Following This Week

You Have More Than You Think - 4 Hardcore Strategies to Torch Debt, Rack Up Cash, and Build Wealth Now. Number one on Shawanda’s hardcore list: “Stop buying shit.” Okay, be honest. How many of you out there thought she was going to suggest something else, like: “Become a famous adult movie star”? And don’t roll your eyes, people; you know darn well it’s a plausible strategy. Speaking of hardcore, it’s time for your:

Control Your Cash - The 25th Through 28th Ways Rich People Think Differently. With this post, the great Greg McFarlane, co-author of the best personal finance book I’ve ever read, Control Your Cash, explains why having a back-up plan isn’t such a good idea. (I just hope Greg’s hobbies don’t include skydiving.)

Barbara Friedberg Personal Finance - Hidden Expenses in a Cruise Vacation. My gal Barb got a rude awakening after taking a cruise where the price supposedly included “everything.” It turns out that for most folks, those “all-inclusive” cruises are far from being, well … all-inclusive. Wait until you see how much more Barb says you should expect to spend over and above that “all-inclusive” price the cruise lines advertise. Oy vey!

MoneyMasterMom - 5 Fun (and Free) Activities I Did with My Kids This Week. Says the eponymous blogger with the alliterative moniker: “I told my 4-year-old daughter we’d go on an animal hunt (and) any animal she caught we could keep as a pet. I don’t recommend this activity if your child has any chance of actually catching something.” Ya think, Mom? Thankfully, most 4-year-olds are only good at catching colds.

Frugal Confessions - Nuggets of Information I Took Away from Popular Financial Books. Uh oh. Unlike Shawanda and the MoneyMasterMom, somebody (ahem, Amanda) apparently missed my recent talk on how to write good headlines at Fincon12. Come on, girlfriend! Readers are more likely to click on your headline if they know how many nuggets you’re going to deliver in the article! (For the record, folks, Amanda shares five of them — and they’re fabulous!)

Debit: The non-institutionalized US population rate grows, on average, by 186,000 citizens per month. Even so, despite the number of monthly new jobs falling far below that figure over the past year, the “official” unemployment rate continues on a downward trend. Whaa?

Credit: Maybe that explains why a new study conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 85% of Democrats believe that recent economic news has been mostly good or at least an even mix. Really?

Debit: They must be unaware that the government’s dubious numbers fail to count unemployed folks who give up looking for work. Eliminate the accounting hocus-pocus and the real unemployment rate jumps from 8.1% to 11.7%.

Debit: I bet they forgot that, thanks to Obamacare and expiration of tax relief legislation passed in 2001 and 2003, the largest tax hikes in the history of America will take effect on New Year’s Day — most of it affecting the middle class.

Debit: Perhaps they didn’t read that 1 in 12 Americans have quit using banks since 2009, or missed reports that the number of Americans using pawnshops, payday lenders and rent-to-own services — 51 million in all — is now 2% higher over the same period.

Debit: And things can’t be that good when the number of people using food stamps EBT cards are also at record levels. In fact, the number of able-bodied people using EBT cards doubled after the work-requirements for welfare were gutted in 2009.

Debit: Hey … I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade, but 8.7 million people are now collecting disability too; that’s an all-time record. In 1967 there was one person taking disability for every 65 workers — today it’s one for every 16 workers.

Credit: Why have disability claims per capita increased over the past 45 years? Anyone? Anyone? After all, continuing advances in technology that make life easier for us should result in fewer per capita disability claims — not more.

Debit: It’s never good when a government runs up $3 in debt for every $1 added to the economy, like the US has over the past three years. In fact, that’s a big reason why our purchasing power continues to decline at alarming rates.

Credit: Is this thing on? I guess some folks don’t realize that excessive debt and money printing inevitably leads to hyperinflation. Or that once it strikes, it will quickly reduce even the largest retirement nest eggs that took decades to build into worthless paper that won’t buy a cup of coffee. Sheesh.

Credit: Warren Buffett likes to complain that “the rich” aren’t taxed enough. So this week the House of Representatives passed the Buffett Rule Act; it allows folks to mark a box on their tax form and write a check for more than they owe to the IRS.

Credit: Assuming the bill becomes law, does anybody really think Mr. Buffett will voluntarily put his money where his mouth is? Me neither. Heck, nothing is stopping him now from paying more taxes.

Credit: In fact, if Buffett really wants to pay more taxes, he should fire his army of tax lawyers and accountants, fill out the Form 1040 all by himself, take the standard deduction, and call it a day.

Every week I feature the most interesting question or comment — assuming I get one, that is. And folks who are lucky enough to have the only question in the mailbag get their letter highlighted here whether it’s interesting or not!

From Misha, who thinks I’ve got some serious issues:

… You’re like those chicks who sit around, criticizing another woman (who’s) walking across the street and minding her own business, just because she is better dressed, more polished, and looks more confident than you feel.

Hmmm where should I start? I forgot I always chose the top hat when playing Monopoly, great memories.

I’m going to guess “double your cruise cost” to make up for the extra charges-now I’ll go read Barbara’s post to see how close I came.

If you like milk and sugar in your coffee, why name your column “Black Coffee?” When we were kids my brothers and I called what you drink “milk, coffee, sugar, stir”. don’t know where it came from, but it was accurate and descriptive.

“If you like milk and sugar in your coffee, why name your column ‘Black Coffee?'”

That’s a fair question Dr. Dean! The simple answer is because, when it comes to the commentary, I always give it to you straight. I never doctor it up with cream and sugar! (No pun intended, Dr. Dean.)

Warren Buffett is a bald faced hypocrite as currently his company has an approximately one billion dollar tax bill from the IRS, and Warren has his legions of tax lawyers working on strategies for how NOT to pay said bill. If Buffett wasn’t such a phony it seems like he would fire all the lawyers and PAY the tax bill with the money saved by not paying the lawyers. You’re right, Buffett wants the masses to pay more while Berkshire Hathaway pays as little as possible. Typical Leftist, “I’ll keep mine while we pay for the non producers out of YOUR income.”

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